Nativity Set

Bert's Granddaddy was an amazing wood-worker.  He had a shop behind his house and made so many beautiful pieces of furniture.  We have a couple of his pieces and we're thankful to have them.  Granddaddy passed away when Bert was 14, so I never got to meet him, but I hear he was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather.  

He used to make these wooden nativity sets and then he would give them to Linda (Bert's mom) to paint.  All of the nativity sets were sold or given away and Linda hasn't seen any of them in years.  Last fall Linda was at a yard sale and she found a nativity set that her dad had made and she had painted and decided it would be fun gift to give Emily.  The nativity set is probably 25 years old and still in GREAT condition! It's absolutely beautiful!  It's so special for us to have something that Emily's great-grandfather made.  There is also a stable that he built with it, but it's not shown in the picture.  

We put up this nativity set on Sunday and it has been her absolute favorite thing to play with ever since.  She takes all the pieces with her every where she goes.  

Here she is loading them into her push toy.:)  

We've been trying to teach her which piece is Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. She definitely knows who Mary is and never gets her confused with Joseph.  Joseph is hard for her to say so she doesn't really have that one down yet.  

About 50% of the time she calls this one (pictured below) "Jesus" and the other 50% of the time she calls it "Jacob" ("Baycup").  This is actually an improvement...the first couple days she was positive that this baby was Jacob (as all babies are)! :)  

Thanks so much for this nativity set, Linda!  It's absolutely perfect for her.  She loves carrying them around.  We don't worry about her breaking the different pieces and we love being able to talk to her about the real meaning of Christmas even at such an early age!!